First,I am strictly an amateur astrologer and *not* an expert in any sense of the word! So please take everything below with appropriate doses of salt!

I'm just starting to learn horary and while *learning* I use Regiomontanus and Tropical Zodiac to analyze the textbook examples, because that is what Lilly (whose book I'm learning from) uses, but for the few personal horaries I've cast, the Sidereal chart works just as well. Once I've learned the basic technique, I do plan to stick to Sidereal with Fagan ayanamsha, as I detailed above

I use Placidus, and not Whole Signs, just because that is what I'm used to. I *suspect* Whole Signs would work just as well, and I know one excellent astrologer who does exactly that.

As to using Solar and Lunar Returns to time events, the basic theory is in books by Fagan and James Eshelman.

But an excellent shortcut is to work through this thread here on skyscript recreating all the charts on Solar Fire and following along with Steve's explanations. This gives you the essence of the method.

The mainstream (if such a word is appropriate) Western Siderialists focus on angular planets (In both natal and return charts) and partile aspects and mostly ignore houses, signs, dignities etc. I happily use all.

I think Eshelman and co use Koch houses, and not Placidus. but I think the angles don't change that much (or at all) so I stick with Placidus, and it works for me.

Fwiw, I am personally not as 'psychological' as the classical Faganians (is that a word?) who congregate on the Solunar's forum (which is a great place to ask questions and get clarifications on technique) The basic idea I've taken from the Fagan folks is the focus on angular planets and partile aspects ,and Solar and Lunar Returns as the core of my practice. I do use signs, dignities etc, as I said above. In my opinion, there is too much psychobabble in modern astrology, and (again in my opinion) accurate prediction is what separates the useful bits from the useless.

Fwiw I started with Vedic astrology too (and didn't get anywhere,which is another story!) . Right now I"m working through Morin and Lilly, and interestingly enough this has enabled me to grasp some of what the Vedic astrology books were trying to convey! One day (far in the future! ) I'll get back to Vedic.

For now, I'm focusing on working through Lilly and Morin, (and once I finish these , the Greek/Arab writers)

Cheers,

RohanM wrote:

For now, I'm focusing on working through Lilly and Morin, (and once I finish these , the Greek/Arab writers)

I've mentioned this in an earlier post, but a truly excellent book on horary astrology is Olivia Barclay's Horary Astrology Rediscovered (1990). For references she has used Lilly, Morin, and other classical texts. Because she bases her concepts on classical authors, her book, written in plain easy-to-read English, helps to make those older authors much easier to understand. Barclay's book can be used hand-in-hand while studying Lilly and Morin. The book also has an excellent Forward written by Robert Hand and comprehensive notes and bibliography.

As for timing, any ayanamsa will give exactly the same results in solar and lunar returns since it's the angles and close aspects that matter the most. Transits will also be exactly the same with any ayanamsa.

However, in horary the zodiac and ayanamsa matter since the first and last degrees of signs are important. As horary astrology is most likely attuned to the consciousness of the astrologer, there is no ayanamsa question for tropical astrologers, but sidereal astrologers will ultimately have to test ayanamsas to choose the one that gives the most accurate degrees for the beginning and ending of signs.

Lahiri and the SVP (Fagan-Bradley) ayanamsas are the basic choices today. Some of us have found Krishnamurti more accurate than Lahiri, but the difference is small, less than 6 minutes. For solar ingress charts, Krishnamurti is much more accurate than Lahiri. But horary astrology doesn't deal with ingress charts.